Law vi­o­la­tors would be taken to task: Afridi

IS­LAM­ABAD: Min­is­ter of State for In­te­rior Shehryar Afridi has stated that those who took law into their own hands dur­ing the protest demon­stra­tions will be made an ex­am­ple un­der the law.

While ad­dress­ing the Se­nate on Thurs­day, he warned that the govern­ment would make an ex­am­ple out of any­one who will try to take the law into their own hands. He said that footages of the el­e­ments, who ran­sacked, were shared with Tehreek Lab­baik Pak­istan (TLP) and they dis­owned them. He said the govern­ment suc­cess­fully held ne­go­ti­a­tions with the pro­test­ers and peace­fully re­solved the mat­ter.

He said there was a con­sen­sus among all the stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the op­po­si­tion, that force should not be used against the pro­test­ers in Aa­sia Bibi case. He said the Prime Min­is­ter also de­sired peace­ful set­tle­ment of the is­sue. Shehryar Afridi said the govern­ment will im­ple­ment the Supreme Court's any or­der in a re­view pe­ti­tion in the case. "In three days of the protests, not a sin­gle drop of blood was spilled," Afridi said. "The gov­ern­men­twill not use bul­lets against its own cit­i­zens. We will em­brace our cit­i­zens and hold di­a­logues with them.

On the other hand op­po­si­tion par­ties in the Se­nate had crit­i­cised the govern­ment for not be­ing force­ful enough in deal­ing with TLP.

“The ju­di­ciary, the state and the army were dragged into the mess: what kind of mes­sage is be­ing sent with th­ese ac­tions?" PPP's Par­lia­men­tary Leader, Sen­a­tor Sherry Rehman, had asked. "The govern­ment was all talk and no ac­tion. This was the first time we've heard the state chal­lenged like this. How can this chal­lenge be ig­nored?.

Op­po­si­tion mem­bers later staged walk­out from se­nate over the ab­sence of govern­ment min­is­ter. Even the Chair­man Se­nate Sadiq San­jrani has ex­pressed an­noy­ance over the ab­sence of govern­ment mem­bers. Later five mem­bers came into the house.